Opportunity Cost: How Alkermes Plans to Survive the Long Winter
Executive Summary
It's been a long and largely unpleasant summer for Alkermes--a major product delay and, thanks to the subsequent stock drop, the cancellation of its acquisition of Reliant and the chance to turn itself into a commercial organization. Now it's cut back on spending--laying off 23% of its workers and, in the process, creating a pipeline gap for the company as it pushes forward with late-stage Vivitrex and slows down on preclinical and early clinical work and giving up the flexibility "to be expansive," says the company's CEO.
You may also be interested in...
Reliant: The Expensive Opportunities in Primary Care
Reliant's business model -- building a new company to sell the primary care products that looked too puny for Big Pharma -- posed management and financing challenges that almost killed the company. It's turned around, thanks to new management and a product in a hot area-lipids. But what's really got its investors excited: the opportunities posed by late-stage primary-care failures at Big Pharmas, who are now looking for market-proven products. And those Big Pharmas can help pay the acquisition cost by dismantling the costly infrastructure created to prove the product's value in the first place.
Reliant: The Expensive Opportunities in Primary Care
Reliant's business model -- building a new company to sell the primary care products that looked too puny for Big Pharma -- posed management and financing challenges that almost killed the company. It's turned around, thanks to new management and a product in a hot area-lipids. But what's really got its investors excited: the opportunities posed by late-stage primary-care failures at Big Pharmas, who are now looking for market-proven products. And those Big Pharmas can help pay the acquisition cost by dismantling the costly infrastructure created to prove the product's value in the first place.
Enzon: The Perils of Profitability
Profitable but pipeline-poor Enzon tried to build a road back to R&D. But its value-oriented investors wouldn't support the spending ambitions, particularly as their royalty income declined. Enzon tried to merge with NPS, a pipeline-rich unprofitable company, hoping to transform its conservative shareholder base for one looking for biopharma-type home runs--but there too ran smack into the immovable force of investor inertia.